rooster

So many nights this spring I'd feed the baby around 3am and get him back to sleep and get myself back to sleep, only to roll over just a few minutes later as Tolliver tip-toed into our room.
On those mornings, for a split second, I might have wished that he would not wake up, wished that I could just sleep a little longer.
And then I allowed myself to imagine the alternative: What if he did not wake up?

For four years he's been like a wild horse, with a wake up routine that can not be broken.  By 6am,  without fail, the party has started.  And the party is Tolliver simultaneously slingshotting Angry Bird balls across the basement and telling some elaborate tale about dragons or minions or astronauts.  Listening to him, while cartoons carry along in the background, I feel like I could plant a yawn farm.
(Aside: His storytelling actually has the strange, mystical ability to make coffee taste even better than it already does at sunrise.  He may be the most imaginative child I know.)

I realize that in the finger snap of a few years Tolliver will be a teenager, still in bed at noon.
And right now, when my little early riser feels far from the child I imagined parenting, I know it’s because I was not inspired enough to envision him.